Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 30

1 Heart-tearing cares and quiv'ring fears, Anxious sighs, untimely tears, Fly, fly to courts, Fly to fond worldling's sports; Where strain'd sardonic smiles are glozing still, And Grief is forced to laugh against her will; Where mirth's but mummery, And sorrows only real be.

2 Fly from our country pastimes, fly, Sad troop of human misery!

Come, serene looks, Clear as the crystal brooks, Or the pure azured heaven, that smiles to see The rich attendance of our poverty.

Peace and a secure mind, Which all men seek, we only find.

3 Abused mortals, did you know Where joy, heart's ease, and comforts grow, You'd scorn proud towers, And seek them in these bowers; Where winds perhaps our woods may sometimes shake, But bl.u.s.tering care could never tempest make, Nor murmurs e'er come nigh us, Saving of fountains that glide by us.

4 Blest silent groves! oh, may ye be For ever mirth's best nursery!

May pure contents, For ever pitch their tents Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains, And peace still slumber by these purling fountains, Which we may every year Find when we come a-fis.h.i.+ng here.

THE SILENT LOVER.

1 Pa.s.sions are liken'd best to floods and streams, The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb; So when affection yields discourse, it seems The bottom is but shallow whence they come; They that are rich in words must needs discover They are but poor in that which makes a lover.

2 Wrong not, sweet mistress of my heart, The merit of true pa.s.sion, With thinking that he feels no smart That sues for no compa.s.sion.

3 Since if my plaints were not t' approve The conquest of thy beauty, It comes not from defect of love, But fear t' exceed my duty.

4 For not knowing that I sue to serve A saint of such perfection As all desire, but none deserve A place in her affection,

5 I rather choose to want relief Than venture the revealing; Where glory recommends the grief, Despair disdains the healing.

6 Silence in love betrays more woe Than words, though ne'er so witty; A beggar that is dumb, you know, May challenge double pity.

7 Then wrong not, dearest to my heart, My love for secret pa.s.sion; He smarteth most who hides his smart, And sues for no compa.s.sion.

A VISION UPON 'THE FAIRY QUEEN.'

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay, Within that temple where the vestal flame Was wont to burn: and pa.s.sing by that way To see that buried dust of living fame, Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept, All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen, At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept; And from thenceforth those Graces were not seen, For they this Queen attended; in whose stead Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hea.r.s.e.

Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed, And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce, Where Homer's sprite did tremble all for grief, And cursed the access of that celestial thief.

LOVE ADMITS NO RIVAL.

1 Shall I, like a hermit, dwell, On a rock, or in a cell, Calling home the smallest part That is missing of my heart, To bestow it where I may Meet a rival every day?

If she undervalue me, What care I how fair she be?

2 Were her tresses angel gold, If a stranger may be bold, Unrebuked, unafraid, To convert them to a braid, And with little more ado Work them into bracelets, too; If the mine be grown so free, What care I how rich it be?

3 Were her hand as rich a prize As her hairs, or precious eyes, If she lay them out to take Kisses, for good manners' sake, And let every lover skip From her hand unto her lip; If she seem not chaste to me, What care I how chaste she be?

4 No; she must be perfect snow, In effect as well as show; Warming but as snow-b.a.l.l.s do, Not like fire, by burning too; But when she by change hath got To her heart a second lot, Then if others share with me, Farewell her, whate'er she be!

JOSHUA SYLVESTER.

Joshua Sylvester is the next in the list of our imperfectly-known, but real poets. Very little is known of his history. He was a merchant- adventurer, and died at Middleburg, aged fifty-five, in 1618. He is said to have applied, in 1597, for the office of secretary to a trading company in Stade, and to have been, on this occasion, patronised by the Earl of Ess.e.x. He was at one time attached to the English Court as a pensioner of Prince Henry. He is said to have been driven abroad by the severity of his satires. He seems to have had a sweet flow of conversational eloquence, and hence was called 'The Silver-tongued.' He was an eminent linguist, and wrote his dedications in various languages.

He published a large volume of poems, very unequal in their value, and inserted in it 'The Soul's Errand,' with interpolations, as we have seen, which prove it not to be his own. His great work is the translation of the 'Divine Weeks and Works' of the French poet, Du Bartas, which is a marvellous medley of flatness and force--of childish weakness and soaring genius--with more _seed poetry_ in it than any poem we remember, except 'Festus,' the chaos of a hundred poetic worlds. There can be little doubt that Milton was familiar with this work in boyhood, and many remarkable coincidences have been pointed out between it and 'Paradise Lost.'

Sylvester was a Puritan, and his publisher, Humphrey Lownes, who lived in the same street with Milton's father, belonged to the same sect; and, as Campbell remarks, 'it is easily to be conceived that Milton often repaired to the shop of Lownes, and there met with the pious didactic poem.' The work, therefore, some specimens of which we subjoin, is interesting, both in itself, and as having been the _prima stamina_ of the great masterpiece of English poetry.

TO RELIGION.

1 Religion, O thou life of life, How worldlings, that profane thee rife, Can wrest thee to their appet.i.tes!

How princes, who thy power deny, Pretend thee for their tyranny, And people for their false delights!

2 Under thy sacred name, all over, The vicious all their vices cover; The insolent their insolence, The proud their pride, the false their fraud, The thief his theft, her filth the bawd, The impudent, their impudence.

3 Ambition under thee aspires, And Avarice under thee desires; Sloth under thee her ease a.s.sumes, Lux under thee all overflows, Wrath under thee outrageous grows, All evil under thee presumes.

4 Religion, erst so venerable, What art thou now but made a fable, A holy mask on folly's brow, Where under lies Dissimulation, Lined with all abomination.

Sacred Religion, where art thou?

5 Not in the church with Simony, Not on the bench with Bribery, Nor in the court with Machiavel, Nor in the city with deceits, Nor in the country with debates; For what hath Heaven to do with h.e.l.l?

ON MAN'S RESEMBLANCE TO G.o.d.

(FROM DU BARTAS.)

O complete creature! who the starry spheres Canst make to move, who 'bove the heavenly bears Extend'st thy power, who guidest with thy hand The day's bright chariot, and the nightly brand: This curious l.u.s.t to imitate the best And fairest works of the Almightiest, By rare effects bears record of thy lineage And high descent; and that his sacred image Was in thy soul engraven, when first his Spirit, The spring of life, did in thy limbs inspire it.

For, as his beauties are past all compare, So is thy soul all beautiful and fair: As he's immortal, and is never idle, Thy soul's immortal, and can brook no bridle Of sloth, to curb her busy intellect: He ponders all; thou peizest[1] each effect: And thy mature and settled sapience Hath some alliance with his providence: He works by reason, thou by rule: he's glory Of the heavenly stages, thou of th' earthly story: He's great High Priest, thou his great vicar here: He's sovereign Prince, and thou his viceroy dear.

For soon as ever he had framed thee, Into thy hands he put this monarchy: Made all the creatures know thee for their lord, And come before thee of their own accord: And gave thee power as master, to impose Fit sense-full names unto the host that rows In watery regions; and the wand'ring herds Of forest people; and the painted birds: Oh, too, too happy! had that fall of thine Not cancell'd so the character divine.

But, since our souls' now sin-obscured light s.h.i.+nes through the lanthorn of our flesh so bright; What sacred splendour will this star send forth, When it shall s.h.i.+ne without this vail of earth?

The Soul here lodged is like a man that dwells In an ill air, annoy'd with noisome smells; In an old house, open to wind and weather; Never in health not half an hour together: Or, almost, like a spider who, confined In her web's centre, shakes with every wind; Moves in an instant, if the buzzing fly Stir but a string of her lawn canopy.

[1] 'Peizest:' weighest.

THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN.

Thou radiant coachman, running endless course, Fountain of heat, of light the lively source, Life of the world, lamp of this universe, Heaven's richest gem: oh, teach me where my verse May but begin thy praise: Alas! I fare Much like to one that in the clouds doth stare To count the quails, that with their shadow cover The Italian sea, when soaring hither over, Fain of a milder and more fruitful clime, They come with us to pa.s.s the summer time: No sooner he begins one shoal to sum, But, more and more, still greater shoals do come, Swarm upon swarm, that with their countless number Break off his purpose, and his sense enc.u.mber.

Day's glorious eye! even as a mighty king About his country stately progressing, Is compa.s.s'd round with dukes, earls, lords, and knights, (Orderly marshall'd in their n.o.ble rites,) Esquires and gentlemen, in courtly kind, And then his guard before him and behind.

And there is nought in all his royal muster, But to his greatness addeth grace and l.u.s.tre: So, while about the world thou ridest aye, Which only lives through virtue of thy ray, Six heavenly princes, mounted evermore, Wait on thy coach, three behind, three before; Besides the host of th' upper twinklers bright, To whom, for pay, thou givest only light.

And, even as man (the little world of cares) Within the middle of the body bears His heart, the spring of life, which with proportion Supplieth spirits to all, and every portion: Even so, O Sun, thy golden chariot marches Amid the six lamps of the six low arches Which seele the world, that equally it might Richly impart them beauty, force, and light.

Praising thy heat, which subtilly doth pierce The solid thickness of our universe: Which in the earth's kidneys mercury doth burn, And pallid sulphur to bright metal turn; I do digress, to praise that light of thine, Which if it should but one day cease to s.h.i.+ne, Th' unpurged air to water would resolve, And water would the mountain tops involve.

Scarce I begin to measure thy bright face Whose greatness doth so oft earth's greatness pa.s.s, And which still running the celestial ring, Is seen and felt of every living thing; But that fantastic'ly I change my theme To sing the swiftness of thy tireless team, To sing how, rising from the Indian wave, Thou seem'st (O t.i.tan) like a bridegroom brave, Who, from his chamber early issuing out In rich array, with rarest gems about, With pleasant countenance and lovely face, With golden tresses and attractive grace, Cheers at his coming all the youthful throng That for his presence earnestly did long, Blessing the day, and with delightful glee, Singing aloud his epithalamie.